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In Bayeux

Thomas Jones

We went to see the Bayeux Tapestry the other day. In January, Emmanuel Macron promised to lend it to Britain, so it seemed worth taking the children to visit it in Normandy before it got dropped in the sea or torn or lost on its way across the Channel (all fairly unlikely, I know, but I’m a pessimist). I needn’t have worried: the tapestry (embroidery, technically, but who calls it that?) won’t be leaving Bayeux until 2023, for a brief period while the museum that houses it is being refurbished – by which time Macron may well no longer be president of France. A lot of his promises seem to turn out like that, a lot less generous than they at first appear.

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